Remarriage In America Is On The Rise

Though marriage is on the decline, remarriage by the contrary is on the rise, according to U.S. Census data.

Nearly one in five U.S. adults, roughly 17 percent, has been married two or more times, according to a new analysis by the U.S. Census Bureau of its 2008-2012 American Community Survey. About 4 percent of U.S. residents age 15 or older have been married three or more times.

Marriage has been on the declining end since the 1960s, the Wall Street Journalreports, but the same can’t be said for those who are saying “I do” more than once in their lifetime. The Pew Research Center found that almost a fourth of today’s married adults have been married before (23 percent), compared with just 13 percent in 1960.

There a few theories as to why this is so. One is that American adults are living longer than they used to, therefore they’re able to dissolve marriages and form new ones over time.

The Journal reports:

The percentage of adults who have married only once has fallen since 1996, to 50% from 54% to for men, and to 54% from 60% for women, according to a comparison of the census’s American Community Survey and a separate Survey of Income and Program Participation by the agency.

Of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the share of adults who have married two or more times is highest in Arkansas (35%). Remarried people are least common in New Jersey (16%).

Remarriage trends matter because remarried adults tend to have much higher annual incomes than divorced adults, and are much less likely to live in poverty, research shows.

In other words, just because your marriage ends in divorce doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give up hope that you won’t someday walk down the aisle again.